Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 61, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 April 1909 — Free-For-All Fight In the Wolcott Saloon. [ARTICLE]

Free-For-All Fight In the Wolcott Saloon.

The Wolcott town marshal does not seem to be able to cope successfully with the saloon situation in that town, and the saloons now running there are said to be a very bedlam of howling and fighting, wherein the boozers not only from Wolcott but from the country and surrounding towns congregate and vie with each other in an effort to prove that the moral saloon does not exist.

On Wednesday night of last week a fight occurred in one of the Wolcott saloons and a young man living between Rensselaer and Remington was quite badly bruised up in the affray. It was a mild fight, however, comes the report to one that occurred last Saturday night and in which some six dr eight participated. No Rensselaer men were in the fight, although there were several in the saloon when it took place, and they have been relating the incident since their return. It seems to have been a free-for-all fight and any one that wanted in could get in. They are evidently selling a lot of bad whiskey at Wolcott. If the town marshal there would arrest and throw into jail every intoxicated person ajid every one that gets Into a fight it would probably serve to cut down the outside patronage. The moral saloon and the talk about regulation is all bosh. The saloon keeper, as a general proposition, quits selling when the customer is broke.